Page 75 of Oathborn
He’d be a hero.
Chapter twenty-nine
Zari
“Zari? Zari!” At the sound of her name, Zari blinked, her eyes fluttering open to the dim light filtering through the leafy canopy above. She stirred, the cool forest air brushing against her skin. Had she dreamed the voice? Her hand reached out, fingers grazing the damp earth where he had sat beside her. The space was empty.
This time, Yansin was nowhere in sight.
He was gone, just as he’d said he would be.
Her heart dropped, a sharp ache of loss spreading through her.
“Zari!” Hazelle burst through the tree line, pushing branches away with her hand. She’d changed out of her Rhydonian clothes, and no glamour hid any of her fae features. Still, nothing in Zari feared her. Instead, she smiled back at the blonde, glad of her safety.
“Hazelle!” Zari called back. “You’re alright!”
Behind her, Daeden melted from the shadows with the silent grace of a predator. Though his expression was gentle, something in the way he held himself made Zari’s skin prickle. Even with his quiet demeanor, the raw power of an Oathborn warrior was impossible to ignore, and she couldn’t help but feel a flicker of fear stir deep within her.
One more figure emerged from the tree line: Tivre, attempting to juggle two pinecones as he walked. Only he looked unsurprised to see Zari.
“We found you! I thought I’d spotted a fire nearby.” Hazelle threw her arm around her. Her long blonde hair, now freed from its bun, brushed over Zari’s cheek as Hazelle squeezed her tighter. “I am so glad you’re safe.”
Daeden, too, embraced her, murmuring his own glad tidings. Tivre remained out of reach, muttering something about how her hair looked like a bird’s nest.
“I am glad to see you all,” Zari managed, her mouth dry and cottony because of the lack of sleep. Her hand reached out once more to the empty space where Yansin had been. Something else was missing, too.
Zari’s eyes widened. “The sword, Hazelle, I’m so sorry.” A petty thief, Yansin had called himself, and proven himself to be. She was a fool after all for trusting him. Still… she found herself spinning a lie to protect him, not wanting Daeden sent to hunt him down. “When I was interrogated by the soldiers, they found it and confiscated it.”
“You are safe. That is what matters.” Hazelle tucked her arm through Zari’s, seemingly unconcerned. “I brought the sword to you to show you that you’d have family on the isles, but it is more important to have you!”
Her chest tight, Zari stared down at her Oathborn mark. It should have been Annette that Hazelle said those words to. A selfish part of Zari whispered that Annette already had a family—a husband, children—people who loved her; unlike Zari, who had been alone for so long.
“The sword was important to you, though. I am so sorry.”
“It was dear to me because it was my sister’s. But we have other swords; we do not have another Zari.” She squeezed her a bit tighter, as if Zari might vanish into smoke. “We have a whole armory on the South Star Isle, don’t we, Dae?”
While they’d talked, Daeden had busied himself putting out the dying embers. If his perceptive nature detected any sign she might not have traveled alone, he did not mention it. “We do have a well-stocked armory, yes. Liyale’s blade will not be so easily replaced. Rosefang was a moon-forged blade.”
“What about my mother’s blade?”
He shook his head. “Hers was a Stellaris’s blade, as is the one you wear. Fine weapons, but not for us.”
It took Zari a moment to realize theusmeant her and Daeden. Once more, her false Oathborn identity nipped at her heals, an unruly dog that refused to sleep. “What’s the difference?”
“An Oathborn’s sword is dedicated to the Maiden, forged in a fire which has burned since the first Oath was given, and cooled in water that once held the Crescent Blade itself.” Daeden’s free hand had moved to rest on the pommel of his own sword, as if it brought him comfort. “They are unmatched in their crafting.”
“I wish we had Celene’s sword,” Hazelle muttered. “Even if Duskstar wasn’t a moon-forged blade, it still was a beautiful thing. It sounded like the goddesses sang each time she drew it.”
“Let us hope it is upon that blade the Traitor dies,” Daeden scowled, a level of anger Zari had never seen before crossing over his face. “If not the deserving blade of an Oathborn.”
With that, he shouldered the extra bundle and then started to walk ahead. Tivre had already left the little clearing, his bright white head of hair making it easy to track his movements as he paused and inspected various pinecones.
When Zari began to walk, her legs felt stiff and sore. She was grateful when Hazelle matched her pace, and asked her, “Those names… they were your sisters, right?” It hadn’t been too hard for her to follow the conversation, at least as far as the names were concerned. As for the fae beliefs in goddesses, their magic, their traditions, all of that made her head spin.
“Would you like to tell me about them?” Zari asked what she’d wished someone would have about her father. Her grief had been solitary for so long. Her extended family had been all too happy to take his land and his money, but wanted nothing to do with his memory. The government took his name and used it for a commemorative statue. They offered nothing to her in return.
Hazelle fidgeted with her empty sleeve, her fingers running over the edge of the fabric. “The other Stellaris, and even the Queen, used to envy my motherfor her three daughters. They said that she must be blessed beyond measure by the goddesses. Yet, the war took her life, my father’s, and both my sisters’. Leaving only me, the least blessed.”
